In 1945, Fitzgerald achieved a unique Academy Awards feat. For portraying Father Fitzgibbon in Leo McCarey's Going My Way (1944), he was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (which he ultimately won) and the Academy Award for Best Actor;[2] voting rules were changed shortly after this occurrence to prevent further dual nominations for the same role. An avid golfer, he later accidentally decapitated his Oscar while practicing his golf swing. During World War II, Oscar statuettes were made of plaster instead of gold-plated bronze to accommodate wartime metal shortages. The Academy provided Fitzgerald with a replacement statuette.[9]

Fitzgerald has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for films at 6220 Hollywood Blvd. and for television at 7001 Hollywood Blvd., making him one of fewer than a hundred Oscar-winning male actors in Hollywood history to have also been honored with a motion pictures star.